Pay Rs 10,000 crore to get interim bail: SC to Sahara's Subrata Roy

Sahara group will have to pay Rs 10,000 crore to get interim bail for its chief Subrata Roy and firm's two directors, who are behind the bars since March 4, the Supreme Court today ordered

New Delhi: Sahara group will have to pay Rs 10,000 crore to get interim bail for its chief Subrata Roy and firm's two directors, who are behind the bars since March 4, the Supreme Court today ordered.

A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar said that interim bail will be granted only after the company fulfils the condition while the court agreed to defreeze the firms' bank accounts to raise the money.

"We are inclined to grant interim bail to the contemnors (Roy and two Directors) who are detained by virtue of our order dated March 4 on the condition that they would pay the amount of Rs 10,000 crores--out of which Rs 5,000 crores to be deposited before this court and for the balance a guarantee of a nationalized bank be furnished in favour of SEBI to be deposited before this Court.

"On compliance, the contemnors be released forthwith and the amount deposited be released to SEBI," the bench said.

Sahara chief Subrata Roy. File pic

Along with the Group's other two Directors Ravi Shankar Dubey and Ashok Roy Choudhary, 65-year-old Roy has been in judicial custody since March 4 for not abiding by the apex court's order for depositing Rs 20,000 crore of investors money with SEBI.

The bench, however, said that it agreed to grant interim bail only to facilitate Roy to raise the money which is to be deposited with SEBI.

"We make it clear that this order is passed in order to facilitate the contemnors to further raise the balance amount so as to comply with the Court's orders mentioned above," it said.

Sahara counsel then pleaded with the court to defreeze the bank accounts to raise the money which was accepted by the bench. The court asked the group to give details of the bank accounts tomorrow and then they will pass the order. It also noted in its order that fresh proposal filed by the group was not in compliance with its earlier order and asked the SEBI to file its response.

SEBI opposed the proposal saying it was not workable. The group, in its proposal, assured the apex court that it will deposit Rs 2,500 crore within three working days and pay three instalments of Rs 3,500 cr each at the end of June, September, December and the remaining Rs 7,000 crore by March 31, 2015.